The Main Line Is Murder

by Donna Huston Murray

  The fire had clearly exceeded my limit, too. But that was last night, and this was today. In so many words Rip had just told me he couldn't bear to discuss it. So I would never, ever bring it up in front of him. I would deal with the children's concerns in private and keep their father out of it. Later Rip and I might touch on the subject, but in the meantime I would permit him to cope in his own way.

  And I would cope in mine.

  The kids bounded down the stairs, Garry's jack-in-the-box disposition just as springy as ever. Chelsea looked bewildered, pale, and unnaturally tired.Both wore the same clothes they had worn to help with the concert, but they carried a pile of pants and sweaters for Rip and me to try. Apparently Wilson Flagg had been helping them root through his closet.

  He followed behind with a slower, heavier tread. "Good afternoon," the former maintenance supervisor greeted me. He no longer was the balding, stoop-shouldered nemesis who refused to fix our bedroom ceiling. Now he was simply contrite. Embarrassed about something, too.

  "Afternoon?"

  "One-thirty," he confirmed.

  I glanced at Rip in amazement. "You missed quite a lot," he remarked. "Go get washed up and I'll tell you. But hurry, because the fire marshal needs us to go through the house with him at two-thirty."

  I winced at the official sound of that.

  "Just routine," Rip assured me, and I hoped he was right.

  I showered and towel-dried my hair and even helped myself to a couple of aspirins from Wilson's medicine cabinet. His clothes, brown corduroy pants, and a soft oxford shirt, looked ludicrous on me, but they felt comfortable over my own underwear. The fire marshal would probably understand that what I'd been wearing had been rolled around in mud.

  Over scrambled eggs and coffee, Rip and the kids filled me in.

  The blaze had been under control within twenty minutes, but the fire fighters had done another two hours of "overhaul," checking for embers.

  "They used long poles to stir everything up," Garry announced, clearly proud of his knowledge. "But boy did it stink."

  "How do you know, young man?" Rip demanded. "I thought you came over here with Didi."

  "She let me watch for a couple minutes. Chelsea waited by the road. It was really steamy and yucky, Mom."

  "Dear Didi," I remarked.

  "Yes," Rip agreed. "She was going to take the kids home with her, but I thought you'd want to see them as soon as you woke up. Wilson has bunks up in his attic for his grandchildren."

  "Thanks, Wilson," I managed over a suddenly tight throat, "for everything." The old man nodded.

  "You, too, Rip." He knew I meant the part about seeing the kids right away.

  "What about Barney?" I asked.

  "After she settled you and the kids down with Wilson's help, Didi took it upon herself to track down our dog. Since we no longer had a phone, the family who found Barney had to call the dogcatcher. I'll go pick him up in a couple minutes.

  "By the way, your Mom expects us to stay with her until we figure out what to do with ourselves."

  "You called her?"

  "Yeah. Woke her up. I didn't want her to hear about us on the news."

  I smiled my admiration and gratitude, and Rip smiled back. Then I realized it was Friday. "What about school?" I asked.

  "Canceled. We used the snow chain to tell everybody. We'll open again Monday."

  "Phew. You've been busy."

  "And now I have a dog to pick up. Mind if the kids come along? We'll be back in half an hour."

  I waved them away. Chelsea hugged me before she went. She seemed much too silent, something I would address as soon as possible.

  Wilson served me another cup of coffee in a yellow-and-white mug. Then he sat opposite me at his dining room table, a lovely oak one sporting a doily and a pot of plastic ivy.

  "How long has your wife been gone?" I asked gently.

  "Ten," he answered.

  I sipped my coffee. It was strong and fresh, exactly what I needed. "What did you mean last night when you said, 'not this time'?" I asked.

  He shrugged his left shoulder apologetically and sighed, I thought with relief. Then he opened his right hand above the table.

  "Sometimes I would drop things," he said. "Once in a while, I'd be somewhere in the school, tools all around me, and I couldn't remember how I got there—or why. I could figure it out easy enough, but it rattled me, you know?"

  I nodded but didn't speak, not wishing to interrupt what seemed to be a difficult confession.

  "Bill Bodourian treated me real good. Like a friend, you know? When he left and your husband took his place, well, I got it in my head to blame him for my own troubles."

  "That's a natural enough thing to do."

  "You think so?" he asked as if the thought surprised him. But then he hadn't had a woman to talk to for ten years.

  "You did a little more than blame Rip for your troubles, didn't you?" I suggested.

  Wilson Flagg raised an eyebrow, but he did not flinch.

  "You also poured coffee on Joanne's computer keyboard," I said, referring the incident that made Joanne question her own mental faculties. "And poured water in the bus's gas tank?"

  Wilson lowered his head. The muscles in his jaw rolled as he gritted his false teeth. "You going to report me?"

  I thought of all he'd done, including saving our dog and trying to save our home, and the idea of him carrying out another prank became unimaginable. Wilson Flagg almost felt like family.

  "No. Of course not," I answered. Perhaps Rip could think of a chore or two that wouldn't rely on an arthritic hand or a perfect memory—parking cars for special events, or dust-mopping the gym in the mornings—a more tangible way to respect an old employee's pride while supplementing his pension. We owed this guy.

  Out on the porch Barney, Rip, and the kids clattered up to the door. Wilson moved somewhat stiffly to let them in, but then he had had an awful night. We all had.

  "Fire marshal's here, Gin," Rip told me. “How about we go meet him and keep this beast out of Wilson's nice neat living room?"

  "Sure," I agreed. Then I took the old man's arthritic hand, and kissed him on the cheek. His stubble was three days old, and he smelled like my grandfather. The pang of nostalgia braced me just enough to put on my muddy red coat and go out to face the fire inspector.

  HE MET US on the playing field, a stolid man of about fifty who looked vaguely familiar—the lines defining his face, the shape of his mouth.

  "Good afternoon, Mrs. Barnes," he greeted me, for some reason favoring me over my husband. Unusual I thought, and disquieting.

  He handed me a card. "DAVID SMITH, FIRE MARSHAL," it said. "CODE ENFORCEMENT."

  Rip caught my eye. "I told him you knew a lot more about the house than me." Perhaps that explained why Smith chose to concentrate on me. I certainly hoped so.

  "Sorry to bother you at a time like this," he said, "but we often find the homeowner's input quite helpful." All of us began to walk up the playing field toward the house.

  "In what way?" I asked, suddenly remembering. He was the first official person I'd seen, the one who had asked whether anyone was inside. Now I realized that he probably had been in charge.

  "To determine the cause," he replied matter-of-factly.

  When we got to the yellow crowd-control tape, I faced forward to lift it over my head and for the first time in full daylight took in the destruction of our house.

  The sight hollowed out my insides, lungs and all. What had been a pleasant looking, putty-colored structure with green trim, a brick walk, and tall, wide living room windows was now a heap of blackened rubble. Some first floor studding remained, but little above that height, just the brick and stucco chimney and a third of a back wall. The evergreen bushes out front were charred stumps littered with glass and blackened trash. Even the near branches of the oak tree above the picnic table had been singed.

  I couldn't imagine that one single item would be salvageable. Everything we used, everything ca
rried forward from our past, everything that was familiar to our everyday life seemed to have been consumed.

  The closer we approached the more items defined themselves. Bedsprings, the refrigerator, and other metal kitchen appliances, all blackened carcasses standing in a mire of sodden debris. The smell of wet ashes reached us even twenty yards away.

  For the concert I had worn navy blue flats and stockings. The closer I walked to the house the more the winter-damp grass soaked my shoes and chilled my feet until they ached. David Smith's thick rubber boots made me remember the gardening boots I kept in the shed, which luckily remained intact. I excused myself to go get them. Without socks the boots would be freezing cold, but at least they were dry and would save my only shoes from the filthy muck I'd be sorting through.

  My only pair of shoes. Thoughts like that would stab at me for months to come. At least the few Christmas presents I'd stored in the shed remained untouched, a collection of colorful boxes and bags. Amazing to think that Christmas was exactly a week away. Even more amazing to think how little I cared.

  "I'll keep Barney and the kids out front," Rip told me. His mood was bleak, although the sharp sunlight and the awful smell may have contributed to the ravaged appearance of his face.

  Chelsea walked over to sit on the picnic table like an orphan, shoulders drooped, hands stuffed into that oversized gray coat she somehow acquired. From between the trees the arrogant girl who ostracized Chelsea on the school bus, Beth, approached and began to speak to her.

  "That's the girl who offered us a garden hose," Smith remarked. "Can you imagine?"

  When I glanced again, Beth was gone and Chelsea looked less forlorn. Shoulders squared. Chin up.

  Somehow Garry had found a tennis ball and was throwing it to Barney, who was on a long leash made from an old clothesline. Our son must have had the presence of mind to grab his own ski jacket from wherever he stashed it during the performance, for he was wearing it now.

  I thought of the arsonist tossing me my coat as I ran from the school, and my hand closed guiltily around the note I must have jammed back into my pocket. David Smith gave me a probing glance, but without x-ray vision or clairvoyance, my worry probably appeared natural. Whatever he was thinking, the investigator immediately began to step through the remains of the house toward the former laundry room area. The breath I released condensed in the chilly air.

  "C'mere a sec, Mrs. Barnes," Smith said. "See this?" With a gloved hand he threw some charred boards aside to reveal what used to be our clothes dryer. He opened its door.

  "A little smokey, but this ain't it."

  I saw what he meant. The outer shell of the dryer was charred while the inside paint remained light colored, merely stained near the openings by brown streaks that had seeped from the outside in.

  David Smith unzipped his official-looking black jacket to free the small 35mm camera dangling around his neck. He proceeded to take a picture of the dryer. Beside it the hot water heater stood its ground beneath hunks of collapsed outer wall. I asked whether it had been responsible for the water on the floor.

  "Nah," Smith demurred. "That was probably us."

  Figures, I thought bitterly. Just when we got a good one.

  I made my way around boards and bedsprings, fragments of furniture, bits of glass, forcing down sentiments, kicking aside emotions, until I reached the corpse of our dishwasher. I opened the door with one finger. Inside, among some broken dishes, some whole, a few lumps of smelly plastic adhered to the metal racks.

  "My Phillies cup melted," I said aloud. Emotions roiled. The floor seemed to shift.

  Smith stood nearby, watching me.

  Watching me. Did he think I set the fire myself?

  Then with sudden clarity I realized that was exactly what I needed him to think.

  The pressure to behave perfectly further unnerved me. Tears began.

  I tossed up my hands. "Sorry," I said with ragged breath. "My Phillies cup melted."

  "Understandable," Smith said reasonably, releasing me from his riveting stare. "Probably reached twenty-two hundred degrees in here...in about ten minutes."

  I wiped my face on my now sooty sleeve. "What exploded?" I asked.

  Smith waved a hand. "Your house."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "Your house," he repeated. "Flammable gases collect at the ceiling, neighbor breaks in the back to get your dog, air rushes in, fuels the fire and bam, she explodes, blasts out the windows. Called a 'flashover.' When fire gets in between the trusses like you had, that's pretty much it. We can't even come into this kind of house—walls collapse."

  In other words, anyone trapped inside would have stayed trapped inside. No wonder he had been exceptionally relieved to learn we were all out; there was nothing anyone could have done if we had not been. The realization made me feel nauseous.

  Smith snapped three more pictures then picked his way around the bedsprings toward the former front door, now an empty frame.

  "See these low burns," he said, stooping down to indicate a particularly dark area beneath where the Christmas tree had been. In front of us stood tall, rectangular metal window frames twisted by the falling walls but still displaying some jagged shards of glass.

  "Here's where your fire started." Smith fished around in the ash muck with his gloves and lifted a black, double strand of wire. "Christmas tree?"

  "Yes."

  "Figured as much. In front of the living room window and all that."

  "I put the lights on at dinnertime, but I thought I unplugged them when I left."

  Smith stood to snap some pictures of the tree area, then stooped again to shoot a small sooty box with two pieces of metal protruding from it—the outlet and parts of the plug.

  "Yep. Sorry to say, it looks like the lights were on."

  Pick a lock, plug in some Christmas lights, touch a lighter to a package under a tree. Instant conflagration. No trace.

  I began to huff, but fought for outward control. Inside my head I screamed "bastard" and worse, internally cursing the arsonist Michael D'Avanzo had sent to avenge his daughter. Never mind that she was a murderer, she was still Daddy's girl, and don't anyone forget it.

  My anguish emerged in a sobbing moan, the sort you hear at funerals caused by war. Rip hurried to usher me away but I pulled loose and staggered into the yard. Smith followed, watching me, deciding about me. I could feel his thoughts.

  I began to pace.

  "Gin," Rip called, his voice fraught with concern.

  I turned. Chelsea was up from her observation post on the picnic table, fists at her side. I was scaring her. Garry stood still, the tennis ball forgotten in his hand.

  I turned. The school spread before me, unharmed. I turned back. My children and husband and dog were there, also unharmed.

  In a sudden moment of insight I realized what their safety meant. More than living proof of a grandfather's gratitude, the sparing of my family meant that Michael D'Avanzo accepted some of the responsibility for his oldest daughter's downfall. Pride required that I be apprised of his generosity. Conceivably, the price for manipulating Michael D'Avanzo could have been much, much higher.

  Now that I understood, I could also forgive.

  Rip moved closer; David Smith hung back.

  I eased into my husband's arms. The children, too, came near and Rip and I hugged them.

  "It's all right," I said. "It's over."

  Chapter 38

  I ADDED A basket of potato chips to the assortment of junk food on the aluminum folding table. Then I moved it. Then I moved it again. Kevin Seitz's "'Afternoon, Gin," startled me into spilling the whole basket.

  Looking especially boyish in his casual clothes, the young business manager pinched a couple of chips off the table with a wry smile, ate them, then wiped his fingers on his jeans. Together we surveyed the Bryn Derwyn teachers gradually gathering in the school's out-dated gym.

  "Quiet," he observed. Today was December 22, the last school day before Christmas vacation,
and by noon not a student remained in the building. Only three hours later the place felt as if it had been abandoned for years.

  "They'll be back in two weeks," I said. Most of them would. Only three students had been permanently withdrawn because of the murder, Nicky D'Avanzo included. Next year was a different matter; next year depended on Rip.

  "What? Oh, no. I meant the teachers are quiet."

  "Ummm." While I stared at the desultory gathering, Kevin stared at me. Although I was trying to get used to that, I had not yet succeeded. At least he wasn't dripping with sympathy like most of the others.

  "You look like a gypsy peering into a crystal ball," he remarked.

  The astuteness of his observation unsettled me. Despite knowing better, I still expected this party to provide some clues about the future of the school. Had the murder and the subsequent loss of our house bonded Rip's constituents into a team? Or had they become even more pessimistic and divided?

  Would Bryn Derwyn become the warm sanctuary portrayed in the brochure? Or was the place so terminal that nobody dared to whisper about it?

  "It's just an office party," Kevin reminded me. "Lighten up."

  I snickered at my old family friend. "Obviously you have no recollection of my last attempt." I referred, of course, to the September debacle in which Jeremy Philbin got horribly blitzed.

  "Au contraire, mon cher," he mimicked me. "I'm just glad it's too cold out for badminton." He winked and sauntered away, swigging Coke from a can.

  "Smart ass," I muttered. My having briefly suspected Kevin of murder had eliminated any trace of pretense between us.

  "I heard that," he said without turning around.

  Joanne Henry appeared at my side. She picked up a pretzel and wiggled it between her thumb and forefinger. I noticed some of the salt fell off.

  "You didn't need to do this," she remarked.

  "Oh yes I did," I told her. Should I explain about needing order in my life? Should I remind her the invitations had been sent before the murder and its aftermath and I was damn well going to deliver, even if it was only pretzels, potato chips and canned soda?